Shaw Rowe Greenville Goodbye Adventure

Shaw is an awesome character that I wish I had gotten to hang out with more than I did over the last couple years. This weekend, though, I got to visit him in Greenvile, NC and see what he's been up to. Right now that includes putting together an RC plane, which I was privilaged enough to see in the works.

We had amazing pizza and the best sausage dip I think I've had in my whole life at a place called Basil's. To my knowledge there's only one, so you'll have to pilgramage to try it if you're not nearby. When we got back we watched a Bunch of movies that included

• 21,
• Into the Wild,
• Hot Fuzz,
• and Batman Begins;

and on top of all that, we had a mountain of a delicious, mouthwatering cake called Tres Leches. It was so good, we ate almost an entire cake by ourselves. Shaw gave me the recipe, and I might post a recipie for it here if it all goes well. It's very easy to make, but you have to be sure to add the right amount of love.

It was great getting to see Shaw again. Soon, he'll be moving too, so I'm really glad we got to hang out.

David and The Dark Knight

David has been a good friend of mine since my sophomore year at Campbell and a roommate my junior year, which is widely considered to be my favorite one. We had the best room on campus in the best "dorm" of anywhere I've ever seen. You would have to see it to believe it.

So David and I decided to go see The Dark Night in the Imax, and it was spectacular. If there were ever a movie worthy of the Imax and worthy of Imax prices, this is the one (I give it five out of five stars, and Google agrees with me).

After that, we ate at Rockola in Garner (an old haunt), and then I got some silky smooth delicious frozen wonder custard from Goodberrys Frozen Custard. I'm really going to miss that place.

It was great to spend some time with Dave. I'm really going to miss him.

Have you ever seen David and Batman at the same place at the same time?

Virginan Goodbye

I just had a wonderful weekend with my Mom visiting my Virginian grandparents, aunts, uncle, and cousins. We got to go Yard Saling, celebrate my Mother's birthday, eat tons of food, and talk a lot about the old times. My grandparents, MeMama and Papa as we call them, have been two of the most unfailingly loving people in my life, matched for that only by my parents, I think. No matter how much we disagree on things (which we do sometimes), the big thing is that we love each other no matter what, and that's something we definitely all agree on. I'm going to miss them a lot.

Aunt Patty, Uncle David, and Aunt Janice were kind and awesome enough to spend a lot of time with me this weekend, too, coming with us on our adventures. Kenzi and Kyle, my cousins, also added their exuberant energies to the visit, and to top everything off, we all went to the Olive Garden for Sunday supper! I even found a great desk for my Alabama condo at Staples during the trip. This was an awesome goodbye adventure.

Grampa's Stories

One of my favorite things to do is to listen to my grandparents tell me about how things were when they were young. In just the span of a few decades, thewhole world has changed, and so much of common knowledge has been turned on its head. My grandfather told me about the days he worked on the farm with his brothers and how they grew their own food. His family hardly ever had money, he said, but they never went hungry. It's impressive to me to hear about how much respect and knowledge he and his family held for the land they tended and that tended them. I even felt a little jealous of that kind of life. Even though we have technology, comfort, and convenience today that my grandfather could never have predicted back then, I don't think we're necessarily happier. Do we have more fun surfing the internet than my grandfather did playing football with a burlap sack full of rags?

But even though a lot has changed, I think a lot has stayed the same, too, and when I think of things that continue on, one of the things I think about is how happiness always seems to have come from the inside out, not the other way around based on how easy things are. Even though we have a lot more technology and convenience around us today, we still seem to have a lot of the same struggles past generations did before us. Like, for instance, people still judge others for being different than they are. Politics is still confusing. Poverty and hunger still hurts people around the world even though there's enough to go around. These and other things are issues that technology alone can't address; we have to address them in our principles first. As a scientist, I think it's easy for me to put a lot of hope in the acquisition of new knowledge, and that's going to being us a lot, no doubt about it, but we still have lot yet to conquer in the human spirit, and that's something more to do with meditation than experimentation.

Even in my twenties, my granddad's stories still fill my eyes with wonder and really give me a genuine hope that we can still do a lot of good just by the way the act and think, which has very little to do with modernness at all. We just need to remember that to whom much is given, much is expected, and that our time has given us some pretty awesome things.

The Gift of a Mac

The most unbelievable thing happened to me today: UAB is going to buy me a Mac!

I received an email this morning from Randy Seay, the IBS graduate program manager at UAB, and he asked me if I had a laptop. I've been saving to buy an Apple MacBook, and since I was waiting for the next iteration, I hadn't bought one yet, so I told so. He quickly emailed me back and told me not to buy a laptop because the University is going to purchase one for me.

Wow! This is great news! Well, isn't it? But even though I'm being offered essentially a completely free computer, one detail made it slightly complicated: I was certain it wouldn't be an Mac. Remember, I have been looking forward to getting an Apple for years, and I've been saving up for it since last year. So I had a huge dilemma on my hands! Should I continue my plans and buy a MacBook, or should I accept the Dell and save $1,200 that could be used to help me get started in Alabama. I was dangerously low in my budget, and taking the Dell would solve that problem completely.

It was like being tempted by Satan in the desert. "Why don't you just turn the stones to bread, Chase. All you have to do is give up you soul!"

Well, I asked Randy if there was any way to subsidize the purchase of a different brand other than Dell, that I had my heart set on something already. He said there wasn't, but he did ask me to tell him about the laptop I wanted, so I wrote him back about the MacBook; its price, its features, and that it may be updated soon. I also noted that the real complication for me wasn't really the specs, which I'm sure Dell could have matched, but that I wanted Apple's unique operating system; those little and big things that make an Apple so nice to own and use. A few minutes later I got this reply:

"I believe I can order this computer for you. I need to place the order before August 12^th, so let me know if the computer configuration changes."

Unbelievable. I didn't even push or pressure, but just because they wanted to, my graduate university, UAB, has offered to do their best to buy me my top choice of laptop (a friggin' Mac!), and not only that, but the money this will save is going to allow me to enjoy a much easier transition from my life in North Carolina to a new one in Alabama. I guess that's what my friend Travis would call "Synchronicity". It makes me feel really good about the program I've chosen and shows me how much UAB is willing to work with me to make my years there enjoyable and productive. I can't thank them enough for being so kind, and I especially thank Randy for doing everything he could to make sure I got the best possible option.

A MacDaddy I'll be yet!

Greensboro Goodbye Adventure

I just had a great weekend. Ever since Sunday, when I got off from work, I've been able to visit and talk to a lot of the people that I really wanted to see before I move to Alabama with even more to come. This past weekend I was lucky enough to visit four great friends of mine in Greensboro: Anna Garret, Danielle Dollan, Rachael Traylor, and Josh Canup. I even got to meet someone new, a friend of Anna's named Edward, who loves to take pictures. All really great people.

We spend a lot of our time just talking and having a great time. We relaxed a lot, walked around in a humongous park, spent a beautiful afternoon downtown and in the bookstore, and I got to eat some great meals prepared by Anna, Rachael, and Danielle. I want to thank them, not just for the hospitality they showed me this weekend, but for the love and friendship they've given me over the past four years. I'm really going to miss them, and I look forward to the interaction we'll continue to have in the future.

Fourth of Jul-Awesome

I had a great 4th of July this year with Mike, a Campbell friend who lives very nearby, and today we went all over.

First stop was the Farmer's Market. Even though I know, when stop to think about fun and excitement, the first thing that comes to mind isn't probably your local Farmer's Market, but that's a terrible shame because we had a blast going up and down the fruitful isles seeing the locally grown goodness, and trying samples of peaches and 25-cent honey tubes. I bought two loaves of homemade sourdough bread for $5.00! The baker's name and number are right on the loaf, so I think I might give him a call and tell him what a great job he's doing. It also rained unexpectedly--like cats and dogs--but that only lasted for a few minutes, so we kept on enjoying our fun-filled day.

On our way out of the market, I got lost a little, so we wound up at a movie theater that I've never seen before. Perfect! We decided to catch the manatee of a movie that, personally, I've really been dying to see. WALL-E! Now, it's a fact that Pixar are absolute geniuses when it comes to creating movies that make me laugh, tear up, and completely fall into the story, so it should have come at no surprise that this movie was no exception. It's a worthy, worthy addition to Pixar's already spectacular line of movies. Don't deprive yourself. Go see it!

Later we had a traditional 4th of July hotdogs and Hamburgers chow down at my parents' house and played some Frisbee before it was time to pack in the car and drive to the Adcock farm for some socializing with the who's-who of Fuquay and some dazzling fireworks. Mike was looking forward to fireworks all day, and he was not disappointed. Tired and full of food and goodies, we dropped Mike back off at this house, and turned in. What a great national day!

Celebrating Diplomacy

Great news! I just got my diploma yesterday in the mail! It's a great feeling to finally have it, knowing I've worked so long and hard to get the thing that's printed on it: "The Degree of Bachelors of Science", a BS. Strangely enough, it doesn't have my major written anywhere on it, but that's okay; I have Biochemistry tattooed on my heart (besides, now I can say I've mastered all of science indiscriminately, including psychology).

In addition to the thrill of just getting my diploma, I now also have something nice to put in that super high-quality, super-expensive diploma frame that my parents gave me for graduation. It's taken a couple months, but they're finally together. Now I can display my degree in effluent elegance a for the rest of my life, and I will never again have to worry about how to fill that empty void between the lion's head and thirty-year scotch over the fireplace.

Furthermore, for when I'm out on the town and, perhaps, happen to make an impossibly unintelligent comment, caught in need of proof of my academic qualifications, I've also been issued a "Pocket-ploma", a laminated card-sized copy of my official intelligence certification to whip out for inspection at a moment's notice. Never be without your papers.

Here are some more pictures:

Happy to finally have everything in its proper place. Framed and in my hands.

Even the imaginary room animals got in on the bid. Action Ninja Monkey could hardly keep in his excitement, while Affirming Wall Face was just smiling eyeball to eyeball the whole time, simply bursting with pride. Even the Vaguely Ironic Witch of the Closet stopped by to see the newly arrived NON-imaginary addition to the home.